20 Diehard Drivers - The Little Guys

At Drag Week, dudes spend a jillion bucks duking it out to run 7-second passes every day. Meanwhile, there are another 150-plus average Joes amassing the same kinds of personal victories while running in the 9s, 10s, 11s, and even the 15s. They still face the abuse of HOT ROD Drag Week, driving 1,000-plus miles in five days to race five times at four different tracks, seeking the lowest average elapsed times in their classes. Or, more important, doing it just for fun. They don't get as much press, but their stories are just as fun and their experiences even more instructive for us mere mortals looking to build a stout streeter that can go the distance. Here are 20 examples from our '11 event--most of which did just that.

"We're here, everything is in one piece, life is good." --Charles Price

Charles Price * Wichita, KS * '69 Chevy El CaminoBest Pass: 9.69 at 137 mph
We never think of spread-port, Dart Big Chief--headed big-blocks as being budget oriented, but Charles Price kind of sold us on the idea. He threw this one together with nothing but used parts from his own stash and from swapping and trading. The result is a 580ci tall-deck motor. He even used regular pistons and cut his own valve notches to match the heads. His biggest problem was that he kept killing main bearings in the weeks leading up to our race, and he ultimately solved it by swapping cranks. He says it did not look like the old crank was bent because all the bearings were uniformly wiped. Odd.

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With a happy engine, he proceeded to kill the trans but got it fixed in the moments before Drag Week began. The 3,700-pound El Camino runs 33-inch tires and 4.30s out back. The gears are not as low as they should be for running naturally aspirated, but Charles plans to squirt it in the future. He wants to run 9.50s on motor, then nitrous it to 8.50s. The current 60-foot times are 1.5s, and he thinks he can improve to 1.35s.

Ross Dudley * Cobourg, Ontario, Canada * '68 Plymouth Road RunnerBest Pass: 11.78 at 112 mph
Ross is a Drag Week regular and has suffered less than most. His radiator split a seam at Graceland a few years ago, and he broke a pushrod once. No biggie. On the way, he's refined the e.t.'s from 12.90s to a best-ever 11.78 without changing much on the basic platform.

The engine is a 451ci stroker (a 400 big-block Chrysler block with a 4.375 bore and a 3.75-stroke crank from a 440). It uses Edelbrock RPM heads, a Performer RPM intake, and a very mild, old-school Mopar Purple Shaft hydraulic flat-tappet cam with 241/241 degrees of duration at 0.050, 0.484/0.484 lift, and a 108-degree lobe-separation angle. The headers are from TTI. It makes 386 rear-wheel horsepower at 5,500 rpm. The drivetrain uses a regular 727 trans and 3.91 gears in the rear and also has a Gear Vendors Under/Overdrive that Ross won at Drag Week a couple of years ago. When Ross started out, the car went 12.90s on street radials, but that improved with the addition of Mickey Thompson Drag Radials, getting him into 12.40s. The other big change was the torque converter, going from stock to a 3,800-stall unit from Turbo Action. That got the car into the very low 12s, and weather and track conditions were responsible for his lifetime best run of 11.78 at Tulsa during Drag Week '11.

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Mark Swank and Bill Alexander * Austin, TX * '78 Chevy CorvetteBest Pass: 11.65 at 117 mph on motor, 10.90 on nitrous
Mark bought this car for his wife two or three decades ago, and once the car was used up as a driver, he gave it to his son with the promise of fixing it up. That's mostly turned into some fun for Mark and his old Army pal Bill. These guys have messed with the car through several engines and currently run a 385ci (4.04 x 3.75) small-block. It uses AFR 190cc heads, 10.75:1 compression, a Comp Cams 284XE hydraulic flat-tappet cam (240/246 at 0.050, 0.507/0.510 lift, 110-degree LSA), a Victor Jr. intake, a 770-cfm Holley, and Hedman headers huffing through 3-inch Flowmasters. Then there's the NOS two-stage Cheater nitrous system. The trans is a 700-R4, and it's been dialed in to shift at exactly 7,000 rpm at WOT.

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As the combo progressed into the 11s on street radials, the guys changed to Mickey Thompson Drag Radials (275/60-15s) and immediately spit IRS parts all over the starting line two years ago at Drag Week. The destruction also managed to kill the transmission. "It was basically junk from the flexplate back," Mark says. The solution was a complete IRS 12-bolt kit with 3.90 gears from Tom's Differentials (TomsDifferentials.com) and Denny's halfshafts (DennysDriveshaft.com).

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For traction, there's a 420-lb/in fiberglass monoleaf in the back, and the bumpstops have been extended to limit wheel rebound so the car can't squat as much during launch. Bilstein shocks are used, and the differential is mounted with aluminum bushings, eliminating the gushy rubber stockers. It has drag shocks up front.

Steve Fagan * Wichita, KS * '94 Chevy S-10Best Pass: 9.06 at 151 mph at Drag Week, 8.98 at 158 lifetime best
You might think that's a cool-looking Blazer, but think again! Steve Fagan, always wanted to race an S-10 Blazer but was unable to find one he could afford, so he built one. Starting with a pickup, he added dealer-purchased body panels to finish it out, figuring that since he was going to chop up the bed to make way for bigger tires anyway, it was no problem to add Blazer panels instead of the original S-10s.

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Steve's combo is a Procharged, 523 (4.56x4.00) big-block with AFR heads, Jesel shaft rockers, and a solid roller cam with 250 at 0.050, 0.650 lift, and a 114-degree LSA. It makes in the region of 900 hp with BigStuff3 injection. The trans is a 4L80E and the rear is a Dana 60 with 4.30 gears. Those meats are M/T 32x17.5 ET Streets on 15x14-inch Cragars. The rear suspension is a four-link, and the front uses bolt-on stuff from Global West. It all looks awesome cutting 1.36-second 60-foot times on the way to rock-bottom 9s.

Scott Abbott * Huntertown, IN * '70 Plymouth Road RunnerBest Pass: 11.36 at 120 mph
Here's a problem: Scott's Mopar was too fast. With no rollbar, NHRA says you can't run quicker than 11.50. Before Drag Week, the car's best time had been 11.98, but he was on a roll this year, running as quick as 11.36 on the last day of Drag Week. He had to load up with spare parts and a full tank of gas to slow the car down so he could turn in his best legal slip of 11.51.

A broken tailpipe hanger and mirror were about the only problems Scotty and his wife faced on Drag Week, although he says the Road Runner is getting a bigger radiator this winter before returning next year.

Joe Grier * Gower, MO * '01 Chevy CorvetteBest Pass: 10.45 at 134 mph at Drag Week, 9.97 at 139 mph lifetime best
A familiar site at HRM events, this '01 Corvette has seen the last five years of our Maxton time trials and six years of Drag Week (breaking during three and finishing three). Joe Grier added a 416ci stroker in the Vette almost six years ago and topped it with a 150 shot of nitrous to go along with his long list of road race suspension components, 3-inch mini-tub kit, beefed transmission, and diff bracing. It adds up to a pretty cool, all-purpose hot rod. "I go to the grocery store in it, do about anything in it," Joe says.

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This year, the Vette spit a halfshaft on the starting line during the last day, but that won't keep Joe from coming back. "Drag Week and Maxton are basically my two vacations a year," he says.

Nick Robinson and Bart Haslich * Garden City, KS * '79 GMC PickupBest Pass: 12.37 at 106 mph
Bart Haslich had registered for Drag Week but passed away just a few weeks before the event. Bart's mom gave his pals the keys to his truck and sent them on the road to Drag Week, as Bart had hoped. Nick Robinson drove it to a 12.37, which is flying for a street truck. It's powered by a 454 that's stock other than a Weiand miniblower and an Isky cam that's 232/242 at 0.050 with 0.549/0.559 lift and a 110-degree LSA. It also has Hooker headers and Flowmasters, MSD ignition, and uses the original 12-bolt with CalTracs bars on the original leaf springs.

Doug and Chance Reh * Pratt, KS * '69 Chevy CamaroBest Pass: 11.15 at 121 mph
Here's last month's cover car from a father and son team that was out for adventure. Doug owns a Chevy dealership in his hometown and also trades muscle cars on the side. In that game, he's owned this car four times since first acquiring it in 1996, but he says it's now for keeps. As a race car since 1972, it's got tubs and ladder bars out back but it's been tamed for the street with the likes of Vintage Air cooling. It's been a cruiser, but the family took it racing again last year.

Power comes from a ZZ502 crate engine that's stock other than a rebuild and balance job, an unspecified Crane solid roller cam, a Victor Jr. intake, and a C&S Specialties Holley carb. On the engine dyno, it made 657 hp at 5,950. The trans is a Powerglide with a Neal Chance 8-inch converter, and the 4.10 gears in the Dana 60 get tame with the tall 31x16.50-15 M/T ET Street meats. Best of all, the driving age is still young in Kansas. Chance is just 14, but drove for 350 miles of Drag Week.

Doug Tipton * Topeka, KS * '64 Chevy El CaminoBest Pass: 11.34 at 116 mph during Drag Week, 10.92 at 122 lifetime best
This was one of our favorites. We admit it's because of the outta-shape launches and the vintage GM accessory camper shell. And Doug reportedly really drives it all the time. The combo is as simple as can be: tame 383 small-block, an NOS hose, a TH350, and a 12-bolt. It hooks on little drag radials, and Doug claims the suspension is stock.

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Brad Barkley * Cheney, KS * '73 Datsun 240ZBest Pass: 9.33 at 148 mph at Drag Week, 8.96 at 158 lifetime best
Crowd favorite! This Z-car with the monstrous 516ci Rat and 14-71 SSI blower sticking through the hood is just plain cool. Other hardware includes a Powerglide with a Gear Vendors unit and a 9-inch with 4.86s. We often caught Brad at gas stations, letting the car cool from a vapor lock issue. His solution? A garden sprayer filled with ice water used to hose down the fuel pump and lines at every stop. Trying his damndest not to let DW conquer him, Brad replaced a spun bearing in a church parking lot one night. Then, just 200 miles shy of the final stop, he called it quits due to more engine noise and fear of causing more serious damage. He set his best pass on the first day with 9.339 at 147.94 mph. If he had limped back, he would have finished Fourth in Unlimited.

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"You can't have that kind of fun anywhere else." --Brad Barkley

Steve Eden and Pete Holm * Stockton, IL * '70 Chevy NovaBest Pass: 12.70 at 109 mph at Drag Week, 12.46 at 110 lifetime best
Steve and Pete have been running this combo since high school in 1980, and Drag Week is the only time of year they race. We appreciate that they wham the gears in a Super T10 four-speed. The engine is a 350 with TRW slugs, an old Crower cam with 0.495-inch lift, a Torker intake, a 750 Holley, and Hooker headers. The 12-bolt rear carries 3.73s. Simple. It even still has the stock drum brakes.

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Clark Rosenstengle * Fremont, MI * '95 Chevy CamaroBest Pass: 9.94 at 137 mph (twice in a row at two tracks!) at Drag Week, 9.66 at 141 lifetime best
Here we're revealing Clark's car in yellow during his first week with us in 2006, then in blue this year. Some transformation, huh? This car has always run naturally aspirated, and in addition to the face-lift, the engine was stepped up to a fire-breathing Dart 632 with no shortage of cam. Sadly, Clark was dorked by the dangling digit of destiny: a roller lifter fragged, sending him home. He'll be back.

Sean and Tara Fling * De Soto, KS * '63 Ford FairlaneBest Pass: 11.53 at 118 mph
We always knew when Sean and Tara were near because the ProCharger made this little wagon sound like a street sweeper. The couple married the day before our '06 Drag Week, and after sporting a twin-turbo, V10 Grand Marquis for a few years, they came back this time with this '63 with a Ford 4.6L mod motor D1SC ProCharger five-speed and tubular A-arms that were made for a Fox-body Mustang custom fitted to the Fairlane. The engine is stock with 200,000 miles on it (having lived in a Lincoln Mark VIII most of its life), but with an EMS Pro controlling everything, it made 550 hp to the treads.

Tara, who helped Tonya Turk organize everyone's timeslips at Drag Week this year, mentioned to us about her grandfather competing at the first NHRA nationals at Great Bend, Kansas, in 1955. This unleashed a search into the archive room where we dug up this photo of her grandfather Don Schleicher changing the tire on his '32 three-window. The class A Comp Coupe featured an Olds Rocket that had been stroked (roughly 360 ci) and placed far back under the windshield; the driver seat was in the center. Don lost by a fluke in the finals to the famed Jim "Jazzy" Nelson. Don made a solo pass when Jazzy couldn't make it to the line in time, but officials let the two race each other after declaring Don the winner. Nelson won. Don was a good sport about it and allowed Nelson to take the class trophy, and therefore Great Bend awarded him a good sportsman award. The rest of the guys in the photo are friends of Don: starting at left, Don Broderick, Dave Waldo (standing over Don's shoulder), Bob Sullivan (later the driver of the Pandemonium Funny Car), Charlie Smith (behind Bob), and who friends believe to be Wayne Berger kneeling behind the car.

Mike Cox and Ron Schroeder * Tulsa, OK * '53 Ford CustomlineBest Pass: 12.12 at 110 mph
The '11 Drag Week was the first to feature the Gasser & A/FX class for retro-appearing cars. We had five entries, and the winner was Mike's '53 Ford. Sorry Blue Oval guys, but it's got a 383 Chevy in it. The mill runs Dart 215cc heads and a Comp solid roller with 245 degrees of duration at 0.050 and 0.565-inch lift. The trans is a TH350 with a Coan 3,500-rpm converter, and the Ford 9-inch carries 3.50 gears and a Detroit Locker.

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Interestingly, the car is set nose-high using a Chevy S10 front suspension clip with Fabtech 3-inch-lift spindles, such as what you'd see on a prerunner-style truck. Out back it's just leaf springs and CalTracs bars.

Ed Ensor * Sheridan, IL * '89 Ford MustangBest Pass: 8.58 at 157 mph
The Fox Mustangs start to look the same after a while, but this one was standout gorgeous in PPG's Bombardier Blue. Ed is a hard-core racer and shared few real details about his combo. It's a 360ci small-block Chevy with iron Pro Action heads that made 680 hp on motor. And there's plenty of NOS juice on top of that--we spotted a plate system and a Fogger on it.

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Jeff Greer * Grand Island, NE * '68 Olds CutlassBest Pass: 16.95 at 73 mph
This one never made a solid pass because the blower belt kept falling off, but we had to share the ingenuity here. Jeff is a tool and die maker and therefore had the skills to slap an '03 Mustang Cobra Eaton blower and complete accessory drive setup to his nearly stock 350 Olds. Aside from the leftover parts, it uses a FAST controller and MSD ignition, and Jeff added a little Lunati cam. We also approve of the T5 five-speed swap that helps lock down 22 mpg at 80 mph. Jeff only had it running for a month before he dove into Drag Week. We want to see how it runs when it's sorted out.

Michael Maddy * Sedgwick, KS * '66 Pontiac GTOBest Pass: 14.85 at 91 mph
Michael has owned this car for 20 years, and he completed the restoration a few days before Drag Week. This was his first time ever driving the car! It runs a 428 Tri-power instead of the original 389, but it's box stock. With a TH400 and 3.08 rear gears, Michael was laughing all the way through his high-14-second runs.

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Don Garnett * Lubbock, TX * '51 Ford CustomBest Pass: No one cares.
This is one of the best stories we've got. Don first saw this car in 1951 when he was 12 years old, and now he owns it. He came on Drag Week to race at Great Bend, Kansas, where this very same car had run at the first NHRA Nationals in 1955--as you can see in HOT ROD's original photo. According to Don, The Little Jewel, as it's known, was assembled by Garner Jones and Herman Lawhon in Lamesa and Odonnel, Texas.

They began with a wrecked '51 Ford wagon and added parts from 27 other cars: the firewall is from a '39 Chevy, the fenders and door skins are '46 Buick, the quarters are off a '47 Chevy four-door, the trunk is '37 Cad sheetmetal, and the hood was originally a Studebaker trunk. It was first powered by a half-inch-stroked 303 Olds and now has a 324. Surprisingly, the men built the car to drag race it, and reportedly it ran 90 mph in the quarter. It was retired in 1970 and shuffled among family members until Don bought it in 2006 and executed a restoration to fairly original trim. It's seen here parked on the WWII runway where it raced in 1955. In 2010, it made the entire Drag Week journey. Oh, and ran a best pass of 18.23 at 73 mph.

Todd Berry * Tuscumbia, AL * '55 Chevy PickupBest Pass: 10.85 at 121 mph at Drag Week, 10.74 at 125 lifetime best
Veteran participants can tell you the one thing you'll break is the one thing you didn't pack. For Todd Berry however, the bracket-racing champ broke four valvesprings and had packed only four spares. He also found a big-purse bracket race on the way home and stopped in to try and win enough to pay for his Drag Week trip. Todd got his '55 first series Chevy truck after graduating from high school and has messed with it ever since. It runs a 427ci small-block with Brodix 18-degree heads making 600 hp at 6,800 rpm.

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Tom Bailey and Steve Morris * Waterford, MI * '69 Chevy Camaro Best Pass: 8.74 at 162 mph
We didn't hear the full story on this one until we got home and read engine builder Steve Morris' report on YellowBullet.com. These guys needed the hard luck award. Steve built a wicked, 615ci big Chevy with Sonny Leonard-ported, 14.5-degree Brodix heads and a F2 ProCharger (which we assume is just phase one). As usual, they got it running, drove it around the block, then headed for Drag Week. With the intercooler in the back seat, the guys were in a sauna the entire time, but that was the fun part. They had a problem with an axle in the 9-inch slipping out of the bearing lock ring, which caused problems with the brake caliper and also with traction, which gets sub-average when you put 90-weight on the tires. They got help from total strangers, including a guy who let them use his lathe at midnight in the middle of who knows where.

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Then, in Amarillo, the rear glass blew out of the car at the top end. Next day in Tulsa, glass chunks fell out of the trunk onto the track and they got yelled at. Then the alternator froze. Then the crank pulley shot off the crank during a pass. It took hours to mangle another pulley and alternator onto it for the next drive, and then the new alternator didn't work. Once that was fixed, a roller lifter gave up 100 miles into the drive. The next morning, the starter died. And, when we canceled the last day's race due to rain, the car wouldn't start and they had to push it onto the trailer during liquid sunshine. And that's Drag Week.